


The Work Week

by Leidolette



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Gen, One Shot Collection, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-15
Updated: 2016-05-15
Packaged: 2018-06-08 14:03:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 1,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6857992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leidolette/pseuds/Leidolette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of short stories written for Renée Minkowski Appreciation Week 2K16. Summaries are in the beginning notes for each chapter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Monday: Biggest Fear

**Author's Note:**

> Minkowski and Lovelace have a lot in common.
> 
> (Note: Takes place directly after Episode 33)

Minkowski turned away from the console that she had been attending for six hours already when Lovelace floated into the observation deck and shut the hatch behind her.

“So, I hear you need my help with your very important work on the navigation charts?” Lovelace said with just the slightest rising of the end of her lips.

“Oh yeah, please, Captain, help me do rote data entry on months of logs. I just don’t know if I can handle the responsibility.” Minkowski responded sarcastically. Then, continuing in more normal tone, she asked, “How did it go?”

Lovelace blew out a long breath. “I got nothing. And I got caught, kind of. ”

Minkowski’s back stiffened. “What happened?”

“Maxwell and Jacobi walked in while I was at the computer. Oh, they acted friendly enough, and said they wouldn’t tell Kepler. They even helped me try to break into his files – supposedly.” Lovelace shrugged.

“What was your cover story?”

“I told them I was checking to see if Goddard had delivered the letters from my crew.” Lovelace’s face was carefully blank.

Minkowski’s breath hitched inaudibly. The letters.

Sometimes, in the rare instances when Lovelace mentioned her old crew, Minkowski felt like she’d been paralyzed. Her heart still beat, but the air stalled in her lungs and her fingers felt numb. The moment would quickly pass, and Minkowski’s face would never betray those seconds of gut-deep panic, but the feeling still happened almost every time.

 _That could be you,_ her traitorous mind whispered. _In three years, you could have nothing left of your crew but letters meant for strangers._

Minkowski had a sudden flash of herself tracking down Eiffel’s family, of which she knew next to nothing. Or trying to discover if Hilbert even had any family left to hear his last words. Or carrying a horrible lack of anything from Hera. She tried to image telling each one of these faceless figures that she had failed, that Eiffel and Hilbert and Hera were never coming back.

_That could be you._

Then Minkowski forced herself to breathe again. “Did they buy it?” she asked.

“Seemed that way, but let’s not push it.” Lovelace’s face still betrayed no expression.

But neither did Minkowski’s, as they floated, turned towards each other.

Like facing a mirror.


	2. Tuesday: Mementos

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Minkowski allows herself time to look at pictures from Earth.

With the cost of sending objects into space hovering around $27,000 per pound, Minkowski had to think long and hard about what she wanted to bring with her on the Haphaestus mission.

Perhaps, in a misguided effort to show her commitment to the mission, Minkowski was more spartan regarding her personal effects than she should have been.

(Which made it all the more aggravating when she discovered Eiffel’s cigarette stash. Valuable crew space and about $53,000 of taxpayer money wasted on dangerous contraband. Great.)

But now, looking through her quarters, Minkowski wished she’d wasted a little more money herself. She had her apple, her necklace, her pen.

And her photos.

The photos were what drew her now.

There were only three that Minkowski drew out of a small packet that she had tucked away in her bunk.

Digital would have honestly made more sense for a space station, but it was easier to pretend that she was closer to home when she could hold the pictures in her hands and read the inscriptions on the back.

Easier to pretend she had even a modicum of privacy when she didn’t have to ask Hera to bring up the image files for her.

A photo of her mom and siblings was on the top of her small stack of photographs. All of them together in her parent’s kitchen on the last Christmas Eve before she reported to Cape Canaveral. Minkowski was sharing a toast with her younger brother, and her mom was bending her sister down to lay a kiss on the top of her head.

The picture below that was of her dad. Years ago, reclined back in his old armchair with her as a kid in his lap. The photo was well-worn, it had followed her from apartment to apartment and base to base. She missed him – it was an old ache.

And the last, of her husband. Looking strong and healthy on the summit of some forgotten desert peak with the sun low in the background. She herself was sweaty and beaming with her arms wrapped around his side. Minkowski remembered that climb; it had been long and arduous, but, when they’d made it to the top, the sunset had lit up the canyon like the rocks themselves were on fire, and had formed a halo along the edges of her husband’s hair.

Minkowski’s fingers relaxed and the photos slid out of grip and floated around her in the enclosed space around her bunk.

The last photo spun lazily in the air in front of her, flashing Minkowski an image of her own smiling face over and over again.

Had she ever been that happy?


	3. Wednesday: Celebration

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Escape, at last.
> 
> (Note: post-series)

The first breath that Minkowski took after the automatic hatch exploded open was like the first that she had taken after being born. Fresh, salty air rushed into the cabin as they bobbed up and down in the sea.

“Hera, sitrep!” Minkowski said, eyes flicking over system readouts and trying to keep her composure despite the wonderful breeze blowing in. The first non-recycled air she’d had in years.

“All systems are nominal, Commander, the landing was a success. I’ve already sent out a distress call on general channels in a fifty kilometer radius. We’ve received several positive responses,” Hera responded from the escape craft’s speakers, making no attempt to hide her happiness.

As soon as Minkowski unstrapped herself from the seat, Eiffel grabbed her around the middle from behind and hoisted her off her feet in an overjoyed hug. Like nearly all of her interactions with Eiffel, it was undignified and ridiculous. But Minkowski was smiling hard enough to hurt, and then even harder when Lovelace undid her safety harness in time to lay a loud, wet kiss square on Minkowski’s cheek.

One by one, they stepped through the hatch onto the raft that automatically inflated in a ring around the craft in the event of a water landing.

Squinting her eyes, Minkowski could only stare in wonder at the blue sky. The sunlight streamed down like confetti falling from the ceiling, and the cries of the seagulls were all the birthdays that she’d ever had rolled into one.


	4. Thursday: Pryce and Carter’s Deep Space Survival Manual

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mr. Koudelka reads Minkowski's favorite book.

“These are ridiculous,” Koudelka said as he flipped through the crisp, new pages of _Pryce and Carter’s Deep Space Survival Procedure Protocol Manual._

Renée had brought it back from her first real briefing about the Hephaestus mission, after she had gotten the word that her application had been accepted.

“‘Tip #614: When in doubt, whip it out. It being hydrochloric acid,’” he read aloud, then gave her a look. “Really?”

“I’m sure the authors had a good reason for including it,” she said rather formally while looking through the binders full of information and schematics that she’d also brought home from the meeting. “Besides, if they’re all that short, I bet I could memorize all the tips. There’s only one thousand and one of them.”

“Wow, what a nerd,” Koudelka teased as he passed Renée on his way to the kitchen to make them up some pork chops. Unfortunately, that left him open for a swat on the butt from Renée, but Koudelka found he didn’t really mind.

That night, Renée stayed up until the early morning hours reading _Pryce and Carter’s Deep Space Survival Procedure Protocol Manual_ until Koudelka grumbled at her from beneath the pillow that he’d put over his head.

Then she turned off the bedside lamp and finally settled into the blankets with him. He sleepily put an arm around her and pulled her close to kiss the back of her neck. He was almost alseep again when he heard Renée say to him, softly, “Who knows, that book might save my life one day.”

—-

Years later, Koudelka woke up from some dream he couldn’t remember. It had been a bad one, he knew, and feelings of dread and anxiety lingered even after he was wide awake and staring at the ceiling.

Renée’s old copy of _Pryce and Carter_ , her first copy, was still in the nightstand drawer, right where she’d left it.

Koudelka leaned over empty side of the bed next to him and fished it out of the drawer by feel. He flipped through the worn pages. He remembered quizzing her not long before she’d left. She’d made good on her word, and had every tip memorized.

“Tip #325: An error is not a disaster until you repeat it.”

“Tip #645: Avoid lockouts. Keep at least one member of your crew inside your craft at all times.”

 _That book might save my life one day,_ Renée had said.

 _Please,_ Koudelka thought, squeezing his eyes shut, _Please, please, please._


	5. Friday: Minkowski in Charge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Colonel Kepler makes the decisions now.
> 
> Maybe.

Commander Minkowski had never really been in charge on the Hephaestus. Not even from the beginning.

She hadn’t known it right away, but in retrospect, it should have been obvious. First there had been Dr. Hilbert’s isolationism. It was pretty hard to effectively coordinate with a crew member who was holed up in his lab 90% of his time. Even before Hilbert revealed his true colors, between the surprise druggings and the lab explosions, Minkowski had never felt like she’d had as much control over him as she would like.

It had taken a little longer for Minkowski to realize how independent Hera truly was. None of her debriefings at Canaveral had really prepared her for it. _Think of it like Siri for a space station,_ they had said.

So when Hera had started to exploit loopholes and purposely misinterpret some of Minkowski’s orders, it had been a complete surprise. Perhaps a more experienced commander would have anticipated it.

(Minkowski had realized that Eiffel was a lost cause from almost the first moment that they had met. No need to elaborate further.)

And all that had been _before_ she had realized that something much, much bigger was going on behind the scenes. Before she’d realized just how powerless she truly was.

So, now she knows. She’s just a trapped little fish in pond bigger and deeper than she can imagine.

But… sometimes little fish can wriggle through the holes in the net, deigned too unimportant to even notice.

In her thinly disguised punishment detail, Kepler had essentially given Minkowski unlimited time at a Hephaestus console – completely unsupervised.

Sure, she had to finish a reasonable number of navigation logs every day – enough to mimic a full day’s output done by a slower worker, at least – but that was easily done. On the first day, after a couple hours of tedious typing that was essentially glorified data entry, Minkowski managed to work out a system that allowed her to skip most of the useless button pushing. It still wasn’t fun, but Minkowski was now able to power through her daily allotment of navigation logs in half the time.

Meaning that for the other half of the day, she was left to her own devices.

—-

An hour before the scheduled beginning of ‘night’ on the Hephaestus, Colonel Kepler stopped by the observation deck.

“Hey, Minkowski, you finished yet?” he asked, floating lazily in the doorway and not sounding like he particularly cared about her answer.

Minkowski ground her molars together. “Almost, sir. I just need to upload today’s data to the compressor.”

“Better get a move on, crew member.”

Minkowski pressed 'save’ and closed out of a program that certainly wasn’t the star chart coordinator.

“Coming, sir.” She smiled.


End file.
